


I Have to Know, I'm Sorry

by Karartegirl99



Category: SCP Foundation, The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, College, The Usher Foundation (The Magnus Archives), i dont know anyhting about library sciences help, not as angsty as it sounds but there is an, scp-140
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-15
Updated: 2020-07-15
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:22:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25287514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Karartegirl99/pseuds/Karartegirl99
Summary: Neil processed two facts in quick succession: 1) his friend was not a normal civilian, after all and 2) she was holding an instance of SCP-140.AKA: SCP and TMA are both CC so if I decide that SCP-140 is a Leitner there is no one who can correct me
Comments: 3
Kudos: 26





	I Have to Know, I'm Sorry

Neil already had all the proper credentials to work RAISA for the Foundation, not to mention five years of experience under his belt. But if being “re-certified” meant going back to school for a semester, a semester where he didn’t have to worry about being eaten by cognitohazards or cursed by undead malware, then he certainly wasn’t going to complain. Walking from class to class, he could almost pretend he was a civilian. He could join a student org, if he wanted. He could go to office hours. He could read random works in the library without keeping an eye out for memetic kill agents. He relished the opportunity to meet new people and make normal friends. He learned he was terrible at smalltalk—all his usual icebreakers were classified—but he wasn’t going to let that stop him.

“What did you think of the test?” he asked his classmate, Lizzie, on their way out of Advanced Informational Architecture.

“I think I should’ve studied,” Lizzie replied. She fished a grubby-looking hard candy from her sweatshirt pocket, unwrapped it, and popped it in her mouth.

“Yeah, right? I thought I’d be fine since I’ve got such a good grasp of metadata, but there were like eight questions on there about things I hadn’t bothered to take notes on.”

“That’s why you gotta take notes on everything, Neil.”

“I recorded the lectures!”

“Did you play them back later?”

“Kinda?”

They stopped at the foot of the stairs. Normally, Lizzie would break away to head to the elevator, but this time she held out a finger as she rustled around in her bag for something. “Here,” she said, pulling out a folder that still had a back-to-school sticker on it. “You can borrow my notes. In return, you help me study next time, yeah?”

“Alright, but my studying skills are a bit rusty.”

“Well, mine are nonexistent, but I’ve got good attention to detail and you’ve worked in an archive before, so as long as we don’t get too cocky we’ll be fine.”

Lizzie was right, as it turns out. They made a good team, and it wasn’t just because of their complementary work ethics. They had the same sense of humor, the same taste in music, and the same mental disorders. They would meet almost every day to go over the lectures, and when they lost track of time, they’d make ramen in the windowless communal kitchen. It was starting to feel like it was more than studying. By the time midterms ended, Lizzie had taken to leaving a toothbrush at Neil’s apartment.

Neil hadn’t forgotten the Foundation, but after weeks of spending time with Lizzie, he could be forgiven for feeling like the Veil was a little bit thicker. It was like remembering a nightmare in noon sunlight. Actually, it was probably more like repressing five years’ worth of trauma, but the specifics don’t matter. The point is, Neil was so relieved to get a break from the anomalous that he could be forgiven for not noticing that Lizzie almost never blinked.

He met one of Lizzie’s other friends, once, when she stopped by to drop off some papers. Lizzie introduced her as Marla and said that she worked for the Usher Foundation. “She’s the reason I got into library sciences,” Lizzie said.

“Yeah, we have the same mentor,” Marla said. She gave Lizzie a look then, some sort of unspoken question, and Lizzie shrugged and shook her head.

“What kind of work does the Usher Foundation do?” Neil asked.

“Paranormal research,” Marla answered. “I’m hoping to run the archives someday, if Lizzie doesn’t beat me to it.”

“Hmm,” said Neil.

Marla exchanged a few words with Lizzie and handed her the papers she was holding, as well as a Ziploc bag containing a small, black book. Then she nodded goodbye to Neil and left.

Neil didn’t see much of Lizzie for the next few days. When he visited, she looked distracted, the same uneasiness she would have the night before a big test. But classes were still on break, and Neil didn’t remember any homework being assigned. Still, whenever he’d come by, he’d find her locked in her room, pouring over the papers Marla’d given her.

“Personal project?” he asked once.

“Just something some friends and I are working on,” she answered.

Neil watched as the pile on Lizzie’s desk got larger as she added her own notes, then smaller as she slowly sorted everything into crisp Manila folders. As she wrapped up her work, some of the tension seemed to leave her shoulders. By the time school started up again, she was almost back to her old self.

They were halfway through their first study session in two weeks when Lizzie’s phone rang. When she checked the caller ID, she closed her laptop and said, “Can we stop for just a second? I should answer this.”

Neil nodded and paused the study playlist they’d been listening to. Lizzie went into the other room, and Neil could hear her part of the conversation as he continued to focus on his notes. He was only half-paying attention, but he could tell when the phone call changed from general pleasantries to something more unusual.

“Devastation…Devastation, Marla… It will be a cold day in hell when I acknowledge Smirke’s taxonomy!...15 now? Really?”

By the sounds of it, Lizzie was pacing. She stopped for a moment, perhaps kicking the rug back into place, or listening to something Marla was saying. Her pacing picked up again. “Cruelty, then. Slaughter. Gore. You know? Flesh and such. I know they’re different, don’t @ me. Wait, hold on.”

Lizzie suddenly came back into the room, and Neil tried to look very engrossed in the pdf he was reading. She took no notice of him, walking past him to her bag and fishing out the Ziploc with the small, black book. She went back into the hall. There was a crinkle of plastic and the sound of pages being flipped. “Page 514,” she recited. “Mentions a faction of fleshcrafters, but they’re clearly not the focal point of...uh-huh...No, that’s Daevas, D-A-E—”

Neil was out of his seat and into the hall before he could find out how Daevas was spelled. He locked eyes with Lizzie, and he processed two facts in quick succession: 1) His friend was not a normal civilian, after all and 2) she was holding an uncontained instance of SCP-140. In a moment of poor judgement, he snatched the book from her hands.

Lizzie let out a squawk of protest. “I’m not done reading that!”

“I should hope so!” said Neil. “What—! Do you know what—!” He huffed. “Where did you _get_ this?”

“Marla brought it over, from the Foundation, we’re studying it—”

“You’re _studying_ —Wait, from _The_ Foundation, or the Usher Foundation?”

“Usher Foundation, now give it back! You’ll get hurt, it’s not safe! We think it causes mania.” At this point, Lizzie remembered the phone in her hand, still spewing out Marla’s tinny voice. She held it up to her ear. “Hold on, I’ll call you back, Neil thinks he’s Jurgen Leitner or something.”

As Lizzie hung up the phone, Neil quickly shoved the book back into the Ziploc. He sent her a look that managed to convey befuddlement and exasperation all at once. “Lizzie, _why_ do you have this?”

“I told you, I’m studying it. It’s what we do, Marla and I. We study things. Archive.” Lizzie considered him for a moment. “You know what it is?”

Neil hesitated, unsure of how much he should say. “I know you shouldn’t have it, for one thing. And, I know it’s really dangerous. Gods, Lizzie, ‘causes mania’ is an understatement! You’ve been studying this on your own? Do you know what it could _do?_ ”

Lizzie had the decency to look ashamed. “I wasn’t gonna get hurt, Neil,” she said softly. “I know what I’m doing.”

“It’s not you that I’m worried about!”

Certainly, there were better ways he could’ve phrased that. Neil considered taking it back, but it was true, and by the way Lizzie was looking at him, it was what she needed to hear. She nodded, teary-eyed. “Sorry I got you involved with this. I’ll get rid of it.”

“I’ll—I—I need to make a phone call.” Neil looked down at the bag in his hand, shook his head, and bustled out of the room. He was pretty sure he remembered the number to one of The Foundation’s fronts. He wasn’t particularly looking forward to the conversation.

In the aftermath of containment teams and clean-up crews that followed, Neil ended up missing out on the rest of the semester. He assumed Lizzie did, too. The details of what was being done with her were above Neil’s clearance, but standard procedure for witnesses was to conduct a thorough interrogation, keep them a while for testing and observation, then amnesticize them before letting them go. The whole process could take several months, so Neil figured he wouldn’t get a chance to see Lizzie again. Even if he did, there was every possibility she wouldn’t know who he was.

This is why Neil was so surprised when, after he was re-certified and back with RAISA, he ran into Lizzie at the site canteen. She was wearing researcher gear, but the guards flanking her suggested she had containment procedures of her own. “Neil, is that you?” she called, loud enough to be heard over the lunchtime rush.

“Lizzie? You work here?”

“Yeah! Tell you what, I’ll forgive you for snitching on me to the Men in Black if you come share some french-fries with me.”

Neil slid into a seat across the table from her. She leaned over and snatched a fry off of his tray. The guards remained standing behind her. She ignored them.

“So as you can tell, I’m not an Archivist,” Lizzie said. “But apparently almost no one here’s heard about the Dread Powers before, so now I’m the resident expert on fucked-up books. Pretty cool, huh? How are things with you?”

“Still working with information systems,” Neil answered. “I’m sorry, ‘Dread Powers’?”

Lizzie caught him up with what she was working on. In the process, she referenced five skips that were above his clearance level, insulted three members of staff, and went on several tangents about scopophobia that Neil was only barely able to follow. Through it all, she spoke as if this were just another late-night cram session. It was incredibly disorienting to see his friend from school, someone he’d once thought of as a normal civilian, in such an esoteric work environment. Neil thought he might never try to compartmentalize again.

Lunch hour was wrapping up, so Lizzie started to bring the conversation to a close. “So, yeah. It’s not exactly the foundation that I _want_ to be working for, but their resources are _ridiculous._ Neil, this place is so cool! You know they have a whole division that works with metafiction?”

“Never metafictional character I didn’t like,” Neil said.

Lizzie snorted and ate the last of Neil’s fries.

A week later, when 140 breached containment, Neil had a pretty good idea of who could have taken it.

**Author's Note:**

> Beholding Avatar in the Foundation what will she read


End file.
